Yankees win Game 4 of World Series with “big hit” from Anthony Volpe

NEW YORK — For about two hours Tuesday night, the most surreal moment of Anthony Volpe's life occurred in the third inning of Game 4 of the World Series.

The quintessential New York Yankees shortstop, a lifelong Yankees fan who lived on the Upper East Side before his family moved across the Hudson to New Jersey when he was in the fourth grade, provided his club with the oxygen it needed at the game he needed elimination.

It came in the form of a grand slam against Los Angeles Dodgers reliever Daniel Hudson – a 107.6 mph rocket that landed a few rows behind the left field wall at Yankee Stadium – giving the Yankees a lead they didn't want to give up an 11-4 defeat to reduce their series deficit to 3-1. Fifteen years after attending the Yankees' last World Series parade in 2009, back when he was 8 years old and his teeth were no longer so straight, he stood on the field in pinstripes at the World Series.

Nothing could top it. And then, about two hours later, something happened.

“VOL-PE! VOL PE! VOL-PE!”

The chants originated with the Bleacher Creatures before spreading to the rest of the building, with one dropping out in the ninth inning. They echoed while Volpe stood at shortstop. That moment, he said, surpassed the Grand Slam.

“No. 1,” Volpe said. “Definitely No. 1.”

The Yankees were desperate to break through after scoring seven runs in the first three games of this clash between the Titans on the Coast. They failed to capitalize on scoring opportunities in the three losses and found themselves teetering on the edge, having not held a lead since giving up Nestor Cortes on the walk-off grand slam in Game 1.

Early Tuesday, it looked like it was going to be even more of the same when Freddie Freeman hit a two-run home run with a laser over the short porch in right field, extending his streak of World Series games with a home run to a record six extended ones. The swing left the sellout crowd disheartened. The Yankees then missed two scoring chances in the first two innings. The script seemed familiar to me.

The Yankees left two runners behind in the first inning. Then, in the second, Volpe's decision to hit a ball that Austin Wells hit off the wall in center field might have cost a run. Instead of Wells hitting a triple, Volpe advanced just 90 feet and Wells settled for a double. Alex Verdugo scored Volpe on a groundout, but that was the only run the Yankees produced.

“It’s totally up to me,” said Volpe, who finished 2 of 4 with a walk and three runs scored. “It’s not a hard read, one we practice, one the Little Leaguers do.”

Volpe avenged his mistake with the most important hit of his life in the third inning. Hudson, the second reliever the Dodgers used on their scheduled bullpen day, hit Aaron Judge with a pitch, gave up a single to Jazz Chisholm Jr. and walked Giancarlo Stanton to load the bases. With Anthony Rizzo out, Volpe came to the plate with two outs looking for a fastball. But he recognized the spin of Hudson's slider after facing him in Game 3 and pounced, setting the building on fire and changing the course of the series.

“I think I pretty much fainted when I saw it fly over the fence,” Volpe said.

It was the Yankees shortstop's first postseason home run and the first World Series grand slam by a Yankee since Tino Martinez hit one in Game 1 against the San Diego Padres in 1998. At 23 years, 184 days, Volpe became the youngest Yankee with a grand slam in the World Series since Mickey Mantle in 1953.

“One thing about us is that we love history and we love making history. So for us, we’re out here right now trying to make history.”

Jazz Chisholm Jr.

“That big hit, we were looking for it,” Verdugo said. “It happened and it just felt like a big exhale in the dugout and everyone was able to play loose and play freely again and just worry about moving on and keeping the lead.”

The Dodgers cut the lead to one in the fifth inning with two runs, both to Luis Gil, but New York's bullpen nullified them from there. Five Yankees relievers held LA without a hit over the final four innings as the offense worked against the Dodgers' numerous relievers.

Wells, who entered the night 4-for-43 with 19 strikeouts in the postseason, hit a solo home run to the upper deck in the sixth inning. Two innings later, the Yankees finally opened the game with a five-run outburst, fueled by Gleyber Torres' three-run home run while forcing Dodgers right-hander Brent Honeywell to throw 50 pitches.

The cushion allowed Yankees manager Aaron Boone not to use Luke Weaver, the team's best reliever, in the ninth inning after the right-hander pitched 1⅓ innings, which should make Weaver available in Game 5, when the Yankees will try to win the first To become the team to ever force a Game 6 after trailing 3-0 in a World Series.

“One thing about us is we love history and we love making history,” Chisholm said. “So for us, we’re just out here trying to make history.”

The Yankees still have a chance to make history and become the second team to ever get out of a 3-0 hole in a postseason series because of Volpe's third-inning swing.

At that point, Volpe was 1-for-12 with two walks and seven strikeouts in the World Series, losing his strong start to the playoffs. After slashing .243/.293/.657 in the regular season, the second-year shortstop batted .310 with an OPS of .804 in the American League Championship Series. He swung harder than he did in the regular season and walked more – eight walks in 37 plate appearances. He attributed the improvement to his work during the Yankees' four days off between the regular season and the start of the AL Division Series.

On Tuesday, the effort led to an outing he imagined “probably every night” and where he grew up with two moments he will never forget.

“It’s pretty crazy to think about,” Volpe said. “It's my dream, but it was all my friends' dreams, all my cousins' dreams, probably my sister's dream too. But winning the World Series was by far the most important thing. Nothing else compares. So we still have a lot of work to do.”